Shi Jiangtao

Opinion | Timing is everything: China-India border deal is a victory for Russia’s Vladimir Putin

Credit to Russian leader for Beijing-New Delhi mediation says much about Moscow’s influence in an increasingly chaotic world, and what it stands to gain

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Moscow-mediated efforts to end a long-running China-India border dispute may yield benefits for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Photo: AP

Shi Jiangtao

Published: 8:20pm, 29 Oct 2024

It should not come as a big surprise that China and India finally came to their senses and agreed to end their four-year-old border hostilities, at least for now.

But the timing of the detente – which occurred during a Russia-hosted event ahead of the US presidential election next week – is rather curious.

New Delhi announced on Monday last week an agreement on pulling back troops from two disputed points in eastern Ladakh of their Himalayan frontier and subsequent patrolling arrangements, which Beijing confirmed the next day.

Then, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on Wednesday for their first formal talks in five years on the sidelines of the Brics summit in Russia’s southwestern city of Kazan.

02:53

Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi hold first formal talk since deadly border clash

It bore striking similarities to the previous border crisis at Doklam seven years ago, which also ended just in time for Modi to travel to Xiamen in southeast China’s Fujian province to meet Xi during the 2017 Brics summit.